History of an expression. During For a long time, the date of November 25 celebrated the “Catherinettes”, these single women who, from the age of 25, wore a yellow and green hat on the day of Saint Catherine, patron saint of marriageable women. This sexist ritual, “mirror of social order”In the words of anthropologist Anne Monjaret, it resonated with younger women as a warning about the risks of becoming “spinsters” if they proved too difficult.
With the decline of marriage and the age at which life as a couple begins, the tradition has fallen into disuse. November 25, proclaimed in 1999 as “International Day to Combat Violence against Women” by the United Nations, now gives rise to feminist demonstrations, the next ones will be held starting Saturday, November 23.
If the expression “spinster” is no longer used, the stigmatization of single and childless women has not disappeared. It even burst into the North American electoral campaign with the little phrase from JD Vance, vice president-elect of the United States, about the “Unhappy, childless cat women” (“a group of childless cats who are miserable with their own lives”), equivalent to the “spinster” in Anglo-Saxon culture.
Delegitimize feminist struggles
Where does this contempt come from? The demonization of female celibacy, concomitant with the first wave of the feminist movement, seems linked to the political battles of the 19th century.my century. “Until then, single women could also be seen as victims of the selfishness of men who did not want to get married.” explains historian Claire-Lise Gaillard, co-director ofHistory of celibacy from the Middle Ages to the 20th centurymy century (with Juliette Eyméoud, PUF, 2023).
While in France the civil code in 1804 reinforced the submission of women to the authority of their husbands, the reformist movements called, starting in the 19th centurymy century, to rethink the place of the family and the role of women in society. “In response, conservative circles are adopting a pronatalist and promarriage discourse that highlights negative representations of single women.”says the historian, who is preparing an article on this stigmatization.
The scarecrow image of the sullen and asocial “spinster” becomes a weapon to delegitimize feminist struggles. The idea that a fulfilled path passes through conjugality and motherhood is “hammered in the 19thmy century even in medical theories, according to which it is defloration that makes a woman fulfilled, and not the right to vote.specifies Claire-Lise Gaillard.
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